Some
people do not like things to be about to happen. They torture themselves, the
truth and the realities as far as lies in their power; they consult together,
talk, equivocate, congregate, opine, formulate, forge partnerships, make
announcements, counter-announcements, force claims, live with counter-claims and
are altogether such a robust and likely group as to make of journalism, an essay
in possibilities. Thus the facts are several removes away, and the forces of
compromise, aspiration and consultation move in a little world of their own.

Meanwhile, the actual world moves on to where it is going, very often to a place
of ethical ill-fame, enormities of mismatched duties and needs, until man faces
his next major fright, as there is consternation and fear among the nations,
estimating what new enormity, plague, concoction of evil is about to strike,
like a ruminative adder, only needing the slightest provocation before acting.
The time of "men's hearts failing them for fear and the
expectation of those things which are coming on the earth" has come (as
foretold in Luke 21:26)..

This
has mounted till reaching the current complicated complexion of things (like a lady's face
made up to the utmost with every kind of eye-shadow, would-be blush, flush,
false eye-lash and the like) becomes a work of presentation, of image;
but what it is imaging, that is entirely another question. Man reaches to such
things and then over-reaches, like one leaning on an invisible wall at the edge
of a precipice. Hence the shocks which come, when it is successfully realised
that what is being done and even what many of the competing ideas
prescribe for
what ought to be done, are far from what needs to be
done; and that what is being 'seen' as distinct from what is there, are things
so diverse that these two worlds simply do not agree.

Then
there are spats, not just with the major players, but multiple, such as evoked by the nuclear
and quasi-nuclear and pseudo-nuclear powers, and other dubious players with
mortality as sport, concerning the way in which, if any, life may continue on
this globe. Since this is to become IMPOSSIBLE as Christ foretold, except at His
return, which has judgment afoot, there is therefore room for sudden change, and
call for desperate measures for desperate times; and one of the first casualties
will be freedom, freedom of speech in particular.

One
could almost be forgiven for mentioning 'President Rudd' whose style may seem so
imposing in appearance, yet moves to be one so disposing in reality; for he is
embarking, we read, on Internet Control, a vast and marvellous scope for an
intellectual Tian-Anmen of our own, a funeral to expression with all sorts of
liberties annulled, possibly in the very name of liberty, always a useful ploy
for some, as in the former USSR where the mere mention of such things could be
seen as a method for their dispersion, if not from the globe, then at least from
their part of it. If not to be discarded in the NAME of liberty, however, for
the ways and means committee is not inactive, then free speech may at least
be severed in the name of some sonorous seeming principle or other, so that the
State can rule out what it really does not want, and yet seek to put a good face
on it.

TRUTH AS
INCONVENIENT

Christ
too was inconvenient - remember Caiaphas (John 11): "It is EXPEDIENT that one
man die for the people, and not that the whole nation perish". Otherwise put, it
is not CONVENIENT for Christ to live: we profit more if we kill Him. In the
above quotation, two words are left out, now replaced: "It
is expedient for us that one man die for the people..." There we find the
central "for us" that cynosure of doom, that led to
the near perishing of the people, saving themselves in guilty folly, removing
the greatest, purest, most munificent, merciful light that shone directly from
God, His Father, the very Christ, for some sort of survival, which replaced a
massive revival, the real need. When it is not convenient to have truth, then of
course man is unmanned, and becomes a sort of controlled robotic reactor, as far
as the State can contrive it.

Truth
then dies, as far as the State is concerned, so that everyone can get on with
living an impossible life, impassive to truth, unperturbed by reality, changing
anything just to keep going, and not minding unduly to what destination that is.
Impossibilities can take a while at times, to show their teeth...

Rites
to wrongs can be bought at the United Nations by making racial declarations, or
attempting this, in the name of attacking racism*1; and the coming junta can
make 'all things new' as Blair and Obama and Rudd have all tended to do in
oracular statement, before election, without too much undue preoccupation with
what that is ... until afterwards. Innovation, like cloud bursts and new paths
for hurricanes, has a very variable history. It needs some practised charting
...

Let us
then listen to a little conversation between two friends, for when it is
fiction, it is not so rude to overhear.

THE DIRE
DIALOGUE

Well, as far as
I am concerned, this world is empty, corrupt, unjust, merciless, fraudulent,
gross and incompetent in all that matters most.

Do you think so,
Ben ? If by 'world' you mean what is IN this sphere of life and environment of
the earth, as persons, and is NOT in Christ, rejecting Him, I could not agree
more.

Look Frank, even in false
religions, it is breach of trust, denial of goodness, flagrant misuse of grace,
daring denial of reality, erection in the very place of God of the mere thoughts
of man, masquerading as something worthy of worship. What could be more corrupt
?

I must say, Ben,
it is sobering when
you read about 'idols in the heart' in Ezekiel 14:4, and using the temple of God
for foreign images (Ezekiel 8), as if you could mix the drinks of philosophy and invention
with the draughts of the refreshing waters that never fail, without becoming a
recently deceased contortionist. As to the thoughts of man, even if psychically shot
through with the claims of mysticism on the one hand, and on the other, those from the God
of creation and redemption: they mix like plus infinity and minus a million.
It is He, whose word has struck the world like a sudden squall,
calmed it like a zephyr, awakened it like a freezing wind, and instructed it in
what alone is verifiable among all the religions, and this for millenia: there is
no hope for what ,seeing the one, chooses the other.

The Lord puts it
vividly. I was reading, in that
Chapter of Ezekiel, that God saw elders who came to Him even though there is, in
the heart of each of them as seen in in their religious practice,
"a
multitude of his idols" . "They are estranged from Me," He declared, "through
their idols." The first instruction is clear: "Repent, and turn yourselves from
your idols, and turn away your faces from all your abominations." God abominates
spiritual substitutes for truth, far more than a good doctor abominates spurious
drugs which intoxicate but do not heal. They are wrong, wrong-headed in
construction, wrong in intention and wrong for the system. They speak of good,
who sell them, but they accomplish ruin; they are what misleads, breeds sorrow,
giving medicine a bad name and their imbibers a bad life, perverting the desire
for health and life, even this, to destruction.

How much more
when the results are eternal!

So evil are
these machinations and so desperate these devices, that God can even allow the
subverted soul of each who so deludes himself to become deceived, and bring on
him the disaster of the psyche which waywardness first invites, just as
excessive smoking can actually CAUSE a train of events, physically. These may
become right out of
the control of the one who has it, so that he becomes a site for corruption and
his very bodily resources contribute to his own ruin, being taken over.

In that context,
Jerusalem was about to be invaded, the temple destroyed (Ezekiel 14:20ff.,
21:8-17). They had resisted and even resented tremendous offers, opportunities,
pleas and reminders from God, given in the time of the weeping prophet (Jeremiah 9), the
heart-broken Jeremiah, and some of those offers were mercy itself (cf. Jeremiah
17). Now came the flustering bustle of judgment. It at length became as
unattractive as unerring, impelling as repulsive.

Perhaps there
could be some ... resolution, some Obama style bargaining, reasoning together,
patch-work quilt in a religious setting, something for all, some agreement about
things of God which could settle human differences and make some kind of peace,
perhaps a little praise for this false religion and for that (cf. God's
Gift of Grace in Christ JesusCh. 3), a
concession here, an allowance there ? Yes, by all means there could be this: but
the permission for, admission of, or even praise of idolatry is merely a provocation that
increases the judgment. Idols in the heart are not welcome to the Maker of the
heart.

No, there is no
palliation. What does one read in Ezekiel 14:20 ? It is this: "Though these three
men were in it, as I live, says the Lord GOD, they shall deliver neither sons nor
daughters, but they only shall be delivered themselves." WHO would be delivered ?
Which are the three men who, even in they were then living in Jerusalem, would
deliver not the city but ONLY THEMSELVES ?

Why, they are "Noah, Daniel and Job". Daniel had been taken early from Jerusalem to be made a
cadet wise man in Babylon, and early distinguished himself in many ways, in
heroics and acts of prayer of an amazing kind, gaining deliverance which
staggered the King as he was faithful to God in an alien environment.

Yes, and Job was
exceedingly famous for the suffering he endured and his wonderfully inspired and
uplifting words found in Job 19, "I know that my Redeemer is living,"
going on to declare this, that in the
last times HE would BE on this earth, and Job, though his very body should be
destroyed, would SEE Him with his own eyes, thus indicating the faith in the
resurrection of his body. This, indeed, despite the rawest of sufferings and the most pitiable
of diseases with which he was afflicted, during his famous trial. Then what of Noah
? He was one
of 8 delivered from the flood, who presumably amid unspeakable mockery stood
firm as by faith, he built a vast vessel, though there was no apparent water worthy of it
... at first! and through him the race was spared.

Would one of these,
would his prayer, that of a saint, help ? No. God emphatically refuses any such
proposition. You deal with God or you have the persuasive powers of sod. What
then if TWO of these great saints had been in the city and prayed for it ?
Surely God would hear then ? Not in the slightest degree. THEY would be
delivered, but none would adhere by any sort of sticking, to them. Well then,
surely three ? perhaps, in united prayer could turn
away judgment from the city which dared, like Obama, to PRAISE another god while
naming HIS name. No (Ezekiel 14:20 is insistent), even that would do nothing.

I see: Resort to
those ways and what then ? Even the whole THREE of these most famous saints
joined in intercession, they could NOT deliver the city, for it was BECAUSE of
mixed gods, gods deemed good enough for praise and position, that it was meeting
its term, and faced devastation. NAMING the God of truth and JOINING Him in some
sort of recognition of other gods is abominable to Him, detestable, unthinkable
as it were, a thing of dereliction.

But what of
America now, and what may be coming over the horizon of horror for Australia, if
truth becomes an unthinkable encumbrance because of political gods who dictate,
surreptitiously corrupting integrity and truth, in their NAME, which is what it
would amount to ?

America does
well if it disjoins from these horrendous deals*2, started in Bush's time and now
made worse by Obama: religious patch-work jobs. Even a surgeon might not be too
pleased if half-way through an operation, for an instant, you came to and
demanded a co-surgeon at once. Far less does God permit joining His infinity
with the creations of men, called God, be they operative as ideals born of some
conception that rules as a god, or more direct worship that supervenes and
directs in its own rites, or wrongs called rights!

You are right.

I'll go further. If there is one thing the Old
Testament makes as clear as ANY other, it is this: that God is not mocked, that
He does not endure liberties with His name, that He has a vast ZEAL for truth in
the heart and that all the gods of the other nations are heathen, as in Psalm
96: in the next Psalm, they are instructed in a delicious and satirical irony,
to WORSHIP HIM! Little gods worshipping the only One worthy of it, how delicious
a rebuke! In the New
Testament, we read this, that there is UNDER HEAVEN NO OTHER NAME by which men
MUST be saved (Acts 4:11-12). It is not an option, nor is the method an option.
If you can't replace readily E=MC2, how much less can you replace
Jesus Christ, crucified! Again in Jude and II Peter and II Timothy 3-4, we
are reading of the corruption of turning from the living God to what others construct,
innovative concerning the truth, wrong in logic*3
, unrepentant in heart, deluded.

The contemporary
push, which dares to become a religious putsch with a Temple of Understanding
and endless inter-faith dialogues*3A and other forbidden fruits of unbelief, is of
course predicted (Revelation 13, 16-19), there being even a SECOND DRAGON, or
spiritually imposing force of cohesion and direction, predicted
to handle ...
the religious aspect of the this-world rule. This, an improvement on
the mindless follies of Communism, morals from nowhere, laws from nowhere, but
authority from everywhere, and will be more palatable to the antics of asininity
than was that. This religious move is predicted to come before judgment comes,
and it is multiple in measure, though single in purpose, as Revelation 13 and 16
show.

Yes, it moves to
this entire world, like mould spreading, just as in Ezekiel's day, it brought
ruin on Jerusalem for its two-timing follies.

It escalates for
the Gentiles, then... But again, their world is somewhat larger! It is a
magnified case in government as in pathology!

This however
does not make it any better, but merely shows that the foretold spiritual
syndrome is known to God, its modes, methods, aims, ambitions and end! That
makes it the more horrendous, for it is like someone who already afflicted from
cancer from smoking, now using stronger cigarettes, where the smoke blows more
broadly, instead of ... stopping at once
and altogether.

Is it good for
Biblical Christian Apologetics that we have these horrendous movements that
compromise the Lord and dare to name Him while praising and participating with
idols ?

In a way it is,
for it is verification. History readily COULD have been different;
the whole world COULD have gone for Christ as it seemed possible it might in the
days of Emperor Constantine, and at other times when misled people
systematically and spuriously used force in the name of Christ, though this was
expressly forbidden (John 18:36ff.), and so showed that their Lord was another.
It WAS however predicted that while on the one hand, there would be enormous
openings up in the nations outside Israel, to the Gospel, including the hearts
of kings, yet the way would always be NARROW.

Yes, BROAD would be the opposite,
leading to hell!

In the end, it is quite clear, the anti-Christ forces, the
relativists, the authors of compromise and conditional alliances and the like,
using the name of religion in the process, applying the screws, increasing the
penalties for non-conformity, on a universal basis: all this is TO COME. It has come
in places, and these are whole large segments of humanity already. When there is
no opposition, nothing for comparison, no USA with its freedom force and Europe
settles for convenience and so forth: then of course the sheer audacity of the
thing will grow as fast as its specious hypocrisy and deceitful ruses. The sheer
pomposity of it is seen in Revelation 13 and 17, its militarism in 19:19, its
corrupting and corrosive hopping about, in 16:13 and on.

It is, then, evidence
of the truth of the word of God; but it is attestation of doom to come.

Why yes! If
Jeremiah wept for what was to come to his city, his beloved people, what does
one do when the entire world faces condemnation, and many in the same mode; and
indeed, so vast has been the very spread of the Gospel of Christ, as foretold in
Matthew 24:14, as what had to happen before Christ the Saviour returned as King,
as long forecast by the prophets (cf. Isaiah 4, Micah 4, 7, Psalm 72,
Habakkuk 3, Matthew 24-25), that more and more, the whole world is coming to
resemble that little nation that Ezekiel and Jeremiah so loved. Movement is ...
from Israel the case study, to this entire world as its consummation in grief
and horror!

At first, it was
the same one for which Jeremiah sorrowed, little Israel. Now it is the large
world, more and more alive and alert to the Gospel, but perverting it, diverting
it, disjoining it, making new carpentries to conjoin it for convenience.

If
Christ Himself wept over Jerusalem, which ignored the "day
of your visitation" when HE came and offered all, and knew what
would come when they removed Him, how much more does one
wonder and weep for the whole gamut of nations, skewed from salvation, seeking
escape from truth and finding appointment with justice, which THEN becomes
judgment.

The track of
truth leads elsewhere.

Yes, while the super-cars of power and pomp parade on the
highway to hell, let us be frank, who are pilgrims and strangers in this world,
we walk on
the narrow path of divine righteousness. While some are impressed, the many, the
multitude is either uneasy or queasy, or attacks, or despises, or condemns ...
and kills as in the Sudan, often in China, harasses and hates, attacks as in
some Moslem countries, seeks to control, to be a Lord to Christ, instead of
owning Him as Lord.

The result ? It
is not hard to see. Wars, rumours of wars, distress of nations fearful of the
things to come. That is the word, like a news outline, from two millenia ago.

That is what is
happening now. But the world puffs away, as if intent on the tobacco tar that
spoils, passionate about it, smoking with ruin in false philosophies, idolatrous
religions: demeaning Christ the way of some, ignoring Him of others, seeking to
control Him of still more.

It is well, for
it does not last, though before its focus is final, it will be seen, both what
it was to be and is, as one which will soon both consummate its folly and find
its judgment.

In the meantime,
Christians face unparalleled troubles, before the return of Christ; but let us bear up,
for He comes, and the work of testifying of Him is a privilege unspeakable, if
by any means some be won to Him. It is not the statistics which should bear
fruit, but the souls. MANY will be won to something else, some combination of
idols, as in the case of the Alpha course*3B.

It is popular!

Yes, its background
shows a force strong on the
acceptance of Romanism, its mode of not answering criticism of Christ over a
significant period during the course, damping criticism of error as a means, is
set on what
actually is a way merely sets the course for a grand 'tolerance' on what is in
fact nothing less than an
hostility to Christ according to the Bible, and an evil combination that merely
shuts up truth in a silence which breeds contempt for what is eternal. Ploys
that suffer unanswered contempt for Christ, for weeks show an honour that puts
means before character, and in this case, fit too well with the avowed desire
that large denominations simply become agreeable, as if the myriads of martyrs
to Rome, and the integrity of the word of God were to be replaced with a feeble
fellowship of no meaning, immersed in self-contradictions and convenience.

Where then are those
who like the disciples, stand when murder is about ? speak when hostility abounds ?
act when slander is a medium of life, and refusal is a path of the many, even of a
multitude who dare to name Christ, while making in effect a game of His
stringent conditions. They are not hard to bear if you love Him: love bears all
things, hopes all things, but REJOICES IN THE TRUTH (I Corinthians 13). Paul
would not give place for ONE HOUR, to heretics in his own day, and had the
matter settled in Jerusalem in vigorous and denunciatory dynamism. What is
precious is not for the wolves. While it is not right to use force, as some have
done while themselves erring, it is wholly alien to let evil rove like a bull
bellowing at a meeting.

The meadows of
mercy are quiet, despite the distant din on the highway to hell.

Dwell here,
then, with Christ as Saviour and Lord according to the Bible, not mixing it with
idols in the heart, on the tongue, in the spirit of your living. The beauty of
holiness is untainted where HE is; and He is not to be found here or there, as
those who say, Look, there He is! or there! as we see in Matthew 24:26ff.. He is in no
mouldable mass, in no combination
of syncretic religionst*3C, in no praise of what disdains or excludes His deity and
His redemption, or makes Him into a material element*4
; for HIS words are SPIRIT
and they are LIFE, and He asks, "What if you shall see the Son of Man ascend to
where He was before ?"

He explains
this, following His imagery about eating His flesh and drinking His blood,
doesn't He ?

Yes, you see it
in John 6:50-63, the imagery moving on from animal sacrifice to the ONE sacrifice which ONCE made peace for
all who so receive Him, which ends by His declaring the principle in view:
"It is
the spirit which gives life; the flesh profits nothing. The words that I speak
to you, they are spirit, and they are life."

But what of
ANOTHER SPIRIT and ANOTHER JESUS and ANOTHER GOSPEL ? Doesn't the Bible make
plain the uttermost peril attaching to this ruse or dream ?

Indeed, it does. In II Corinthians 11, Paul
declares that those espousing such things are false
apostles, deceitful workers. They are transformationists that do not change, but are
endued from what is evil, surrogates for
Satan or illustrations at least; for says Paul, it is no marvel that such people
can seem angelic, for "Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light."
What then ? "Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also be transformed
as the ministers of righteousness, whose end shall be according to their works."

We can but pray*5
for any among such that they may be found; for the Lord takes no pleasure in the
death of the wicked, and many, misled, follow paths as do youths in their ignorance on the roads, without understanding what they do.
It is a great day when, praise to the Lord, some are delivered from the various
devious departures, slithering slips and at times, robust rambunctious
renegacies that dare to use the name for another thing, word, Gospel, and god!

The word of God
however does not change; and wise is the one who follows it (Matthew 7:15ff.).
For this, for Jesus Christ, there is no substitute; there is only fancy dress,
the moment of folly, the dressing up ... but the truth CANNOT be dressed up. As it
is, so it continues, and he who is Christ's disciple continues in HIS WORD, as
He states so very clearly (John 15:10, 8:29-31).

Yes, I recall in
Isaiah 61:10, the truth is something to be PUT ON, not as a dress up, but as a
garment that Christ gives (the one missing in the parable of Matthew 21, for the
wedding guest, with disastrous results!). And that ?

It is the
righteousness of God, a gracious gift, just as He states it in Romans 5:17. It
is a gift by grace (Romans 5:15), by devotion, and is as a wedding garment
provided for the bride by the Lord.

For more on the
Bush era and remarkable preliminaries to the Obama betrayal, the multi-faith
reverence, and more in the Moslem field, see Dastardly Dynamics
Ch. 10, *2! The important point here
is the status of the officer making these statements in the US.

One of the tragedies of the ending
theologically cosmopolitan syncretism, the World Council of Churches, and
various unity movements, is that they deal subversively with the Bible,
'creatively' with the Gospel, delusively with the Christ, inventing from
philosophies of social, psychological, political or biological kind, various
additives and performing varied extractions, till the very name of Jesus is used
as if it were that of some captive maiden, adjusting to the needs of libidinous
captors.

This is of course mere dalliance, and has less than nothing to do with
either the Gospel, or Christ, or salvation. This sort of imagery is to be found
in the Bible, where the idolators in Israel were found lusting for the 'young
men of Assyria' and the like, as if it were sexual, whereas this is a mere image
for the translation into spiritual terms, Israel here conceived as a maiden. The
point is that here are SPIRITUAL masters, whose idols are imported, whose ways
are to some extent honoured or even venerated. It was for the exclusion of this
that Israel was to be made an example (Isaiah 43:21). The Church is in principle
not different: it is to be as a shining light in the darkness (Philippians
2:15-16, Jude), reflecting Christ: not a soot coated former-lighting agent, now
hidden underground below who knows what messes.

Alas, many in ancient Israel, here
an expository example, and many leaders in fact wanted the power, virility,
arrogance, pride, security of arms, the explosive force and uninhibited living
style which such powers showed, and sought the religion of what were enemies,
attracted, at times entranced by the idols involved, to combine it, and even as
in Jeremiah 7 and Ezekiel 7. They proceeded to combine such things with the name
of the Lord. It is summed up in outcome, as seen in II Kings 17, especially for
our present point, vv. 17-33.

As to the combination and the
defilement, consider the outrage of Jeremiah 7 (to which are allied the words of
the Saviour in Matthew 21:13).

" 'Behold, you trust in lying
words that cannot profit.

'Will
you steal, murder, commit adultery, swear falsely, burn incense to Baal,
and walk after other gods whom you do not know, and then come and stand before Me in this house
which is called by My name,
and say, "We are delivered to do all these abominations ?

'Has
this house, which is called by My name, become a den of thieves in your eyes?
Behold, I, even I, have seen it,' says the Lord."

As to the lustful parallel, you see it in a
glaring light in Ezekiel 23:12ff.. Consider for example this excerpt from
Ezekiel 23:4ff.:

"Samaria is Oholah,
and Jerusalem is Oholibah.

Oholah played
the harlot even though she was Mine;

And she lusted for
her lovers, the neighboring Assyrians,

Who were clothed
in purple,

Captains and
rulers,

All of them
desirable young men,

Horsemen riding on
horses.

Thus she
committed her harlotry with them,

All of them choice
men of Assyria;

And with all for
whom she lusted,

With all their
idols, she defiled herself.

She has never
given up her harlotry brought from Egypt,

For in her youth
they had lain with her,

Pressed her virgin
bosom,

And poured out
their immorality upon her.

"Therefore I have
delivered her

Into the hand of
her lovers,

Into the hand of
the Assyrians,

For whom she
lusted.

They uncovered
her nakedness,

Took away her sons
and daughters,

And slew her with the sword ..."

and again, from 23:17ff.:

"Then the
Babylonians came to her, into the bed of love,

And they defiled
her with their immorality;

So she was defiled
by them, and alienated herself from them.

She revealed her harlotry
and uncovered her nakedness.

Then I alienated Myself from her,

It is scarcely a compliment to ancient Israel,
that so many Gentiles are following here in their spiritually lustful,
idolatrous combination techniques, often USING Christ as an additive catalyst,
while replacing Him in reality.

Instead of such syncretism, there is a way of
spiritual fidelity. How much better would be a movement to overcome
some of the needless divisions which enthusiasts have allowed to creep into the
Church, now here, now there, one emphasising (quite rightly) sovereignty, one
(quite rightly) love, but each tending to get into a corner of pugnacity,
instead of refining the concepts to the biblical score, not ignoring difficult
verses but IMPLEMENTING ALL (cf. the movement in To Know God ... Ch.
1). There are many such areas, and it behoves the
people of the Lord indeed to seek unity, but not besides the word, rather
through it.

The World Reformed Alliance has made a
significant step, but alas it has nothing in its various creeds to enable the
full scope of the biblical depiction of the love of God to be realised, a matter
Spurgeon took some steps to emphasise, not of course to this recent body, but in
principle in his own time (see A Time to Praise GodAppendix 1).

What is needed is broader than this, in coverage
of biblical truth, just as the excellent constitution of the Presbyterian Church
of Australia, 1901, was, one which alas the Assembly of 1991 in part effectually
suppressed. What is needed is not Calvinism or Lutheranism or Methodism, the
first two in very name forbidden by the Bible (I Corinthians 3), and the last
lacking, despite its sound emphasis on love, in the realities of divine
sovereignty (cf. Predestination and Freewill Section 2, as
marked).

In The Bay of Retractable Islands, there is
a listing and a resolving of historical problem areas, making needless
divisions, for biblically they are not so very
difficult to correct, this extreme a little here, that there. It is not some one
insight that is needed, nor broad lassitude either, but precise theological
accuracy on all fronts, normative biblical faithfulness and a willingness to adjust until the weakness of
extremism and the breadth of extra-biblical carelessness being avoided, fidelity
is found and co-operation does not founder.